America's Most Beautiful College Campuses

Below:

Next story in Travel News

“If you ask freshmen why they chose their colleges, they usually
say one of two things,” says Baltimore architect Adam Gross,
who’s worked on projects at the University of Virginia and
Swarthmore. “Either they got a good financial aid package or they
thought the campus was beautiful.”

America’s most beautiful college campuses have the power not only
to sway indecisive high school students, of course, but also to
attract tourists. Their appeal comes through varying combinations
of awe-inspiring architecture, landscaping, and surroundings. To
choose among more than 2,600 four-year American colleges, we
considered these three key factors as well as architects’ expert
opinions.

“The most important thing to realize is that how landscaping and
buildings interconnect is as important as the buildings
themselves,” explains Boston-based architect Mark deShong. At
Princeton University, for example, “It’s really about landscape,”
he says. The campus connects its ivy-covered gray stone buildings
with footpaths, idyllic small greens, and courtyards that create
an intimate village-like scale.

Architectural coherence also plays a role in making a campus
beautiful. Take the University of San Diego, which sticks to one
architectural style: the Spanish Renaissance, with its elaborate
façades, delicate ironwork, and carved wood. Ocean views and
palm-tree-lined courtyards are extra selling points.

Yale can’t compete when it comes to location, but it has embraced
one architectural movement after another. As Robert A. M. Stern,
dean of Yale’s School of Architecture, puts it: “Our campus is a
living history of the architecture and urbanism of its three
centuries in New Haven.” Whatever your taste, you’ll find a
structure to your liking on a campus stroll, perhaps dorms
designed by 1960s starchitect Eero Saarinen or James Gamble
Rogers’s imposing Gothic bell tower.

But no assessment of America’s campuses would be complete without
the University of Virginia. “You might think it looks like all
these other campuses, but it’s the first to look like that,” says
deShong. He cites founder and architect Thomas Jefferson’s
then-novel concept of flanking a lawn with pavilions linked by
colonnades and a grand library at its head. New York-based
architect Alexander Cooper concurs: “UVA remains the masterpiece
of American campus planning.”

So plan your own trip to check out these campus masterpieces.
Think we missed a beautiful campus? Tell us why it should make
the grade by posting a comment below. —Ratha Tep

Sure, it might be planted just outside of downtown Nashville, but
you certainly wouldn’t know by looking around. The campus
actually doubles as a sprawling arboretum. With some 170 species
of trees scattered across 300-plus acres and sightings of hawks,
owls, and cardinals, it’s easy to forget you’re actually in the
middle of a city. Italianate-style Kirkland Hall is an orienting
landmark and helps give the campus an atmosphere that T+L
commenter blevins called “civility personified.”
—Kate Appleton